


fortune favours the lost

by kuro49



Series: thirty days of writing '18 [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham Knight Genesis (Comics), DCU
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 20:10:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15937415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: Slade knows Jason is not capable of that killing blow when the time comes. He still sticks around.





	fortune favours the lost

**Author's Note:**

> set during ak: genesis right after slade breaks jason out. 
> 
> prompt: fortune favours the lost.

 

It’s Friday night in Gotham, and there are several things that happen all at once.

Slade Wilson is exactly $546,862,893.99 richer, courtesy of Bruce Wayne even if it is unknown to the man. The pasty-faced psycho is dead for good. He’s got a brand new employer in the kid he’s pulled out of the bowels of Arkham Asylum, and while the money is triple of what he anticipated in earning, he is also having second thoughts.

 

Maybe he should’ve stayed at home and watched the shows he’s DVR’ed because he wasn’t supposed to take anything back with him.

Except now, he’s got the kid dripping blood on his nice hardwood floors.

Slade watches as the kid scans the space, gives him the moment to catalogue every exit before he starts. “Bathroom’s down the hall, there’re tweezers in the first aid kit underneath the sink.” Slade can tell the pain from the bullet in his shoulder is only starting to hit the kid full force now that the adrenaline has run dry. It is in the grit of his teeth and the tightening of his jaw so Slade continues. “I’ll bring you a change of clothes.”

“They come in my size?” The kid asks like that is the only concern here.

Slade probably shouldn’t be as amused as he is, and it probably shows. “You’ll make do, kid.”

 

When his new boss comes out of the bathroom, he is in Slade’s smallest shirt and it is still looking too big on his frame. It leaves the kid looking lost, washed out with his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, and there is absolutely no surprise there.

“Didn’t know if you wanted this back.” The kid says as he puts the small rounded tracking device down next to Deathstroke’s mug, the very same one he made him swallow with two gloved fingers inside of his mouth within seconds of their deal as a reassurance.

Slade raises an eyebrow but doesn't reach out to take it back. “Could’ve just flushed it.”

“Didn’t come out of that end, old man.” He rolls his eyes.

Slade doesn’t like to admit it, but he doesn’t hate the kid. It's a new feeling for him to experience. He thinks it’s the unfortunate circumstances surrounding him and the hell he’s been through, or maybe, how he’s still managed to find them crossing paths despite it. There are absolutely no similarities between them and he likes that.

 

“You’ve got a name, kid?"

“You mean Joker didn’t give you one when he paid you to kill me?”

“The clown didn’t give me anything except to keep an eye for _that_.”

Slade looks deliberately to his cheek and the letter carved into the skin. When the kid laughs, it is loud and every bit painful.

“You can call me J,” he finally says.

 

J, Slade learns is really Jay is actually Jason Peter Todd.

And he doesn’t sleep the first night there, or the second and the third. Slade lets him because he is not the damn kid’s _dad_. By the fifth night, Slade pushes over a small vial of sedative and a syringe and it is an offer as kind as he can make it.

“You can do it yourself, or I can.”

Jason’s eyes are trained on the empty syringe, his hands clench and unclench once. His voice is steady when he says. “No needles.”

Slade shrugs because he doesn’t really care. The kid can make his own bad decisions.

“Don’t break anything when you wake up then.”

Jason trashes half the room Slade puts him in when the sleep deprivation finally gets to be too much. Slade puts it on his running tab before he leaves him on his own to pick out the splinters of the broken nightstand from his hands.

 

It takes two weeks for Jason to put together a plan for the funds he needs to gather from Slade’s kitchen table. It takes six weeks for Jason to get a hold of those funds, and it takes exactly eight weeks from then for them to start sleeping together.

 

Slade's hands are on his bare skin, dragging blunt nails down his sides.

“What would daddy bats say about this?”

It is bound to come up, and Jason is almost surprised it’s taken this long. He is on the man’s couch without his pants, thighs spread on either side of Slade as he sits straddling him, the man is underneath him without a shirt. They are almost on equal footing when Jason bends his head down and draws Slade’s mouth into a kiss that gets the split lip from their spar earlier this morning bleeding again.

“Batman can say a lot of things and it wouldn’t make a damn difference now, Slade.”

There is a certain level of conviction in his voice that almost has Slade convinced. The bloody edge of it all is what gives him away.

 

Here is a conversation Slade thinks they can have, one day when he cares enough to bring it up.

“You want to settle the score, kid?”

Jason would nod.

“You should start with looking like you want him dead.”

It is not now, it is probably not later or ever really because Slade Wilson is not one to volunteer himself for a mess of this kind, and what is between Batman and the Arkham Knight Jason has become is a mess for the ages and Slade’s seen some shit. It is still a nice thought to entertain.

 

“You’re going to South America.”

Jason announces when Slade walks in to the room, the kid has his back turned to him and Slade waits a beat, lets the kid finish what he is doing at the computers set up across the work bench. Jason has half his suit laid out and ripped apart, Arkham Knight’s helmet plugged into one of the laptops running some kind of diagnostics.

Slade sets down his own helmet on the bench before Jason is turning around to catch his eye. He gives him a fair glare in warning before he finally continues, voice no less firm even if it is almost reluctant for him to correct himself in the way he knows Slade is waiting for.

“We’re going to South America.”

The two of them have been in each other’s vicinity for the last six months. With Slade on his retainer, and the Scarecrow entering the picture now. Jason doesn’t like the latter but there is something to fear toxin that works really fucking effective in this plan of his.

When he reaches out with an expectant hand, Slade drops the duffle bag containing what the boss asked for and says:

“Can’t wait, kid.”

 

Slade Wilson knows this is not a bad plan by far, he’s worked with much worse. Slade also knows Jason is not capable of that killing blow when the time comes.

He still sticks around.

 


End file.
